How to Bear Beginning Again

It’s not the first love that kills you, it’s the last. The one that come mid-life, you’re so deeply vested in, that recovering will take twice as long and require your A-game and spiritual support teams. Why?

Because you’ve raised your children, perhaps sacrificed your career, perhaps moved across the country a time or two for his promotions. Or you’ve lost your connection because of the drudgery of decades of being a responsible, self-sacrificing parent and mortgage paying adult.

Maybe you grew up and he didn’t or vice versa. Maybe he got cancer and you died one year at a time being his caregiver. Maybe words can’t summarize the exact reason it came to a horrific end,  but it did.

You ignored the signs, but they kept popping up until they ripped your soul apart reminding you of that all too familiar sound of a flatlining marriage or relationship.

The loss of you. The loss of him. The loss of a comfortable yet unfulfilling life lapping up against the trash of the shoreline, ready for someone to come a take away the debris so you can see your way to a new path where the salty waters won’t rush up over your sores every high tide.

Holy Shit Brenda, Lighten Up

This heavy post and poem below by Susan Lee is for one purpose. I want you to know that I know starting over, beginning again, making a fresh start, and finding a new way is brutally hard, terrifying, emotionally draining, and oh so necessary for far too many of us who have been banging our head against the wall for too long. The chance to begin again, though sometimes a nasty blow, is your big moment to raise from the ashes like a Phoenix and become a woman you never thought possible. And I’m confident you will.

The “experts” say it takes two to seven years to recover from a mid-life crisis, but those who make it through make it through keenly alive and more fully aware of life’s glories because they’ve tasted its gore. And because of these precious experiences, you are innately able to love more fully, accept more openly, and give more generously than ever before.

These are the rewards that make it possible to begin again.

One last thing

by Susan Lee (aka Midlife Virgin)
from Diary of a Midlife Crisis

 

I have only one last thing to lose.

One very precious last thing.

Very, very precious.

And it’ll be gone very soon. And that will kill me.

And then…

 

I will begin again.

Because that’s what I do.

Begin. Again.

Sadder. Harder. Stronger. Emptier.

And this will be that way.

 

Begin again.

Because I have to. Because there is no other choice.

I thought that’s what this was – a new beginning.

But it’s not. It’s just something that will end.

Because it always does.

 

And I get up.

And I begin again.

This time, however, is going to be harder. So very much harder.

And it’s not fair.

It’s not.

 

And it’s the last time I’ll begin this part of my life again.

Because I’m not that strong.

Because I don’t want to lose this last precious thing.

Because it’s never fair.

And in losing this one precious thing, I lose so very much.

 

And I will begin again with the lost left behind, not to be recovered, a beginning that will be slower and harder.

But I will begin again.

Because that’s what I do. Even when I don’t want to.

And right now, I don’t.

 

Please share this post and or poem with a friend who needs to know she can begin again and sprout a whole new life.

 

Tags: mid-life crisis, relationships

Category: Men & Dating